1. We submit the following facts for your information and request you to ban commercialization of food and non-food genetically modified [GM] crops in India. We further request you to take up the issue of banning GM crops from neighbouring South Asian countries as well because of potential hazard of cross border contamination.

Fact 1: There is no independently conducted and peer reviewed study that proves that GM seeds increase yield. On the other hand, there are hundreds of studies that conclusively prove that GM seeds actually increase the cost of farming, give similar or lower yield as compared to non-GM crops, and require higher dose of proprietary pesticides.

Fact 2: There is not one independent study that conclusively demonstrates that GM foods enhance nutritive content of food crops.

Fact 3: Whenever farmers use GM seeds, the farmer saved seeds and farmlands of neighbouring farmers get irreversibly contaminated from cross-pollination. Cross pollination can’t be stopped because it can take place by wind, birds, bees and insects and the natural systems do not respect political boundaries. No farmer and no country can fence out contamination from GM crops. It amounts to denial of a farmer’s right to plant natural hybrids or saved seeds.

It amounts to denial of our right to food, denial of right to what we want to eat.

Please remember that the five firms [Monsanto, Bayer, Dow Chemicals, Syngenta, and DuPont, the five largest multinational seed companies], who own GM seeds and market them globally, have consistently refused to guarantee that their seeds shall not cause contamination.

They are not interested in product liability. Instead, they are on record for seeking ex-post facto approval of their seeds when contamination is discovered. They are on record for shunning product liability. Monsanto is on record for extorting money from farmers [8,000+ in the US alone] for demanding technology fees while contaminating farmers’ land and crops and seeds.

The clear strategy of the five multinational seed and chemical giants is to plant GM seeds by stealth across the world on the lands of the most defenceless nations and contaminate farmer saved seeds and natural hybrids.

The IPR regime forced upon the world by this group of firms through WTO will ensure within a decade that these five firms own every seed on earth. And the contamination is going on irreversibly right now. The WTO is the instrument of global food control by a handful of US and EU based corporations, backed by the military might of the US.

Fact 4: The technology of genetic engineering in agriculture is a cell invasion technology, as yet imperfect. Its purpose is to produce unique traits for the sole purpose of patenting. However, the seed firms proffer the argument that their seeds are “substantially equivalent” to natural seeds, yet when it comes to patenting, the same firms claim that their seeds are “fundamentally different” to natural seeds requiring patent protection. In actual fact GM seeds are fundamentally different and have never existed in nature.

Fact 5: Since this “cell invasion technology” crosses specie barrier, scientists don’t know how it will impact the natural systems like other plant species, aquatic life and the huge unseen biodiversity that exists in our soil and supports food production.

Fact 6: Environmental contamination: Whenever independent evaluation of environmental and health effect of GM food crops has been undertaken, based on the same data that the above mentioned firms used to obtain approval for commercialization, scientists found that adverse effects were concealed. When these scientists published their findings, they were systematically demonized and their research work seized.

Bela Darvas, Professor of Biology at Hungary‘s Debrecen University found that Monsanto’s Mon 810 corn has altered the genetic make-up of two Hungarian protected species. He also found changes in the genetic structure of a rare insect specie. Instead of allowing Darvas to probe further the environmental adverse effects of GM corn [Mon810 event], Monsanto refused to give Darvas any more Mon 810 event corn to continue with his experiments. Monsanto also refused his request for Mon 863, another GM variety. So, not only has MON 810 been shown to cause serious damage to animals, but it may also wipe out protected plant and insect species.

“A mountain of evidence now exists that clearly show adverse trans specie contamination. The environmental impact of GM crops may be worse than the health impact. Genetic pollution is self-propagating. It is altering our biosphere in ways that could outlast climate change and nuclear waste.” [Dr. Mercola, latest briefing]

If the GM technology is so safe, as claimed by the five multinational seed firms, why have they consistently refused independent evaluation of bio-safety of their products? What they have done amounts of destruction of science, scientists and scientific establishments.

Fact 7:Health impacts: In all animal studies undertaken by eminent scientists in some of the best known research establishments around the world, vital organ and immune system damage was observed.

Dr Irina Ermakova, formerly of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in a feeding trial on mice, found that second generation mice were 50% shorter and about 50% of the progeny of GM food fed parents died prematurely.

Another study showed that mice fed Bt corn suffered multiple immune system responses, “as if they were eating the pure bt toxin alone.”

Giles Seralini demonstrated that Bt Brinjal has stable toxins and could pose serious health hazard and he also provided evidence to the Indian Supreme Court of the possible health effects of Bt Brinjal. Unfortunately the Honourable Chief Justice, hearing the PIL number 206 of 2005 ignored his findings and approved Bt Brinjal for commercialization.

Fact 8: Death of animals feeding on GM crops/food and feed

We quote the example of German farmer Gottfried Glockner's experience with GM corn. Glockner planted Bt176 event of Syngenta essentially as feed for his cows. Being a scientist himself, he started with 10% GM feed and gradually increased the proportion, carefully noting milk yield and any side effects. Nothing much happened in the first three years but when he increased the feed to 100% GM, his animals "were having gluey-white faeces and violent diarrhoea" and their "milk contained blood." Eventually all his seventy cows died. Prof Angelika Hilbeck of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology found from Glockner's Bt 176 corn samples, that Bt toxins were present "in active form and extremely stable." The cows died of a high dose of toxins.

Sheep grazing on harvested Bt cotton field died for similar reasons in Maharashtra

13 Buffaloes grazing on Bt field in Andhra Pradesh died within three days of similar Bt toxin’s toxic effect which destroyed their gut. Liver tissue examined post mortem had lesions, indicating pre-cancerous growth.

US farmers have reported sterility and fertility problems among pigs and cows fed GM corn.

Farmers have widely reported that migratory birds avoid Bt farmlands

Farmers have also reported that domesticated animals AVOID GM feed, given an option.

Fact 9: The GM seed and food industry officials falsely claim that the alien DNA in genetically modified food is destroyed by digestive system when genetically modified food is eaten. Researchers have now proven that this contention is patently false.

There is only one known human trial study, by Newcastle University in the UK conducted on 7 human volunteers, back in the late 1990s. The volunteers had, in the past, had their lower intestines removed and now use colostomy bags. After just one meal with GM soy, researchers were shocked to find that GM DNA had outsmarted the digestive process and was present in stable form….in human gut bacteria….and metamorphosing living bacteria in human digestive system.

“This means that long after we stop eating GMOs, we may still have potentially harmful GM proteins produced continuously inside of us. Put more plainly, eating a corn chip produced from Bt corn might transform our intestinal bacteria into living pesticide factories, possibly for the rest of our lives.” [Jeffrey Smith]

“When evidence of gene transfer is reported at medical conferences around the US, doctors often respond by citing the huge increase of gastrointestinal problems among their patients over the last decade. GM foods might be colonizing the gut flora of North Americans.” [Jeffrey Smith]

British researchers demonstrated that GM DNA from crops can find its way into human gut bacteria, creating health risks. One of their main concerns is that the antibiotic marker genes inserted with the GM material may cause resistance to antibiotics. Scientists still don’t know how human and animal immune system would respond to an alien protein that is found in Nature but not in the form that Nature engineered.

Another concern is adverse immune response to an alien protein, which is also a known fact but because of absence of laws on labelling in the US, medical authorities can’t correlate. Labelling can help correlate but has NOT been permitted in the USA largely due to the fact that the regulatory authorities have conflict of interest and US-FDA’s own scientists’ findings have been ignored. However, EU is considering union-wide labelling but the process is being stalled.

Michael Antonio, a senior lecturer in molecular genetics at King’s College [a Medical School in London], says that the lone human study was significant because it was believed that digestive system could not be damaged from GM foods. The Newcastle researchers demonstrated that GM plant DNA can enter and metamorphose human gut bacteria.

We need to involve the ICMR to carry out independent study on the health impacts of GM foods. With independent we mean INDEPENDENT NOT GOVERNMENT OR INDUSTRY DIRECTED. Please give us confidence that you mean business.

Fact 10 Ethical issues: Human genes have been inserted into cow, and cow genes inserted into pig. A fish gene has been inserted into tomato. And this is being done without our knowledge.

Our main concerns are: (i) how would Muslim community react when they know that beef is inserted with human or pig genes; (ii) How would Hindus react if they know that their vegetables contain cow or pig or even human genes? (iii) What happens to a person who is allergic to fish or meat? Would he/she survive? These are ethical and medical questions and need proper health and socio-economic survey of acceptability of GM foods to informed people by, again we stress, an independent survey firm, certainly not any US or EU-based multinational marketing research firm.

Fact 11: The US-FDA has a major problem of CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The GEAC says if the US-FDA has approved GM foods, it is ok for India. The US-FDA has been headed by former executives of Monsanto since 1991. Politicians have politicized the US-FDA. It is no more an independent regulatory body as envisaged under the US laws. It approved the introduction of GM foods in 1993 WITHOUT PROPER SAFEGUARDS AND BIOSAFETY ASSESSMENT; it amounts to a biological experiment ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Should we in India follow the criminality of the US Government?

Fact 12: In a controlled experiment on genetically engineered salmon by a private firm, scientists found that GE salmon can grow three times its normal size in less than three months. This firm reported that 100,000 genetically engineered Salmon escaped into the ocean when their laboratory was destroyed in flood. These GE salmons are mating with natural salmon. And they are such voracious eaters that they can even eat their own specie.

We are allowing these firms to alter Nature without even knowing the long term consequences.

Fact 12: Eugenics becomes “Genetic Engineering”

Dear Minister: We all know that we are a billion plus in India. South Asia has 1.6 billion people that can’t be supported by its natural ecosystem goods and services. We can survive no doubt, but given the progressively diminishing natural resources, as you know fully well as Minister for Environment and Forests, we can’t achieve a higher quality of life because of the population growth.We are not Neo-Malthusian, like Henry Kissinger, who in his National Security Study Memo 200 [also known as NSSM200] in 1974 identified 13 countries for population reduction, if necessary by force, of military power or starvation.

Henry Kissinger is on record for saying "Control oil, you control nations; control food and you control the people."

India is one of the thirteen listed in NSSM200. We don’t mind if quirks of Nature kills us. But please don’t advance an agenda of mass culling in South Asia by the sociopaths who are in charge of DC and London.

The field of Eugenics was renamed "genetics" to make it more acceptable and also to hide its real purpose.

Through incremental strategic adjustments within a handful of chemical, food and seed corporations, ably supported by persons in key departments of the US Government, behemoths were created that could re-write the regulatory framework of nearly every country. And these seeds of destruction of a carefully constructed regulatory framework - ostensibly to protect the environment and human health - were sown back in the 1920s.

Pause to think: a normal healthy person can at the most go without food for perhaps seven days but it takes a full season, say around four months, for a seed to grow into food crop.

Just five agri-biz corporations, all US based (Cargill, Bunge, Archer Daniels, et al), control global grain trade, and just five control global trade in seeds. Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, DuPont, and Dow Chemicals control genetically engineered seeds. While these powerful oligopolies were being knocked into place, anti-trust laws were diluted to exempt these firms. “It was not surprising that the Pentagon's National Defense University, on the eve of the 2003 Iraq War, issued a paper declaring: 'Agribiz is to the United States what oil is to the Middle East.' Agribusiness had become a strategic weapon in the arsenal of the world's only superpower."

Dear Minister, please pause to think and ponder: they are already achieving their goal of mass culling. The ruling elite in the US has plan to reduce US population to 100 million and that of the world to 750 million. It means that they will silently kill 200+ million American citizens and over 5 billion world-wide. Do you want to be part of this agenda? Silent killers are: GM seeds and foods, untested vaccines [the great swine, avian and all sorts of flu scandals], untested drugs being used on South Asians, the use of mass media to “entertain” instead of informing [Tavistock researches, led by that wily crafty Sigmund Freud back in the 1930s],HAARP [That can alter weather at will and destroy farming communities anywhere in the world AT WILL], Depleted Uranium (DU) contamination of the entire Himalayan snow mass and rivers that will continue to kill South Asians for the next 4.5 billion years are silent weapons.

Millions in India know the truth. If you don’t take action, the people of India will have to, sooner or later.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

In 2006-08, Maharashtra saw 12, 493 farm suicides. That is 85 per cent higher than the 6,745 suicides it recorded during 1997-1999. And the worst three-year period for any State, any time.

The loan waiver year of 2008 saw 16,196 farm suicides in the country, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. Compared to 2007, that’s a fall of just 436. As economist Professor K. Nagaraj who has worked in-depth on farm suicide data says, “the numbers leave little room for comfort and none at all for self-congratulation.” There were no major changes in the trend that set in from the late 1990s and worsened after 2002. The dismal truth is that very high numbers of farm suicides still occur within a fast decreasing farm population.

Between just the Census of 1991 and that of 2001, nearly 8 million cultivators quit farming. A year from now, the 2011 Census will tell us how many more quit in this decade. It is not likely to be less. It could even dwarf that 8 million figure as the exodus from farming probably intensified after 2001. The State-wise farm suicide ratios — number of farmers committing suicide per 100,000 farmers — are still pegged on the outdated 2001 figures. So the 2011 Census, with more authentic counts of how many farmers there really are, might provide an unhappy update on what is going on.

Focussing on farm suicides as a share of total suicides in India misleads. That way, it’s “aha! the percentage is coming down.” That’s silly. For one thing, the total number of suicides (all groups, not just farmers) is increasing — in a growing population. Farm suicides are rising within a declining farm population. Two, an all-India picture disguises the intensity. The devastation lies in the Big 5 States (Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh). These account for two-thirds of all farm suicides during 2003-08. Take just the Big 5 — their percentage of all farm suicides has gone up. Worse, even their percentage of total all-India suicides (all categories) has risen. Poor States like Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are doing very badly for some years now.

In the period 1997-2002, farm suicides in the Big 5 States accounted for roughly one out of every 12 of all suicides in the country. In 2003-08, they accounted for nearly one out of every 10.

The NCRB now has farm suicide data for 12 years. Actually, farm data appear in its records from 1995 onwards, but some States failed to report for the first two years. Hence 1997, from when all States are reporting their farm suicide data, is a more reliable base year. The NCRB has also made access much easier by placing all past years of “Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India” reports on its website.

The 12-year period allows us to compare farm suicide numbers for 1997-2002, with how they turned out in the next 6-year period of 2003-2008. All 12 years were pretty bad, but the latter six were decidedly worse.

Reading a ‘trend’ into a single year’s dip or rise is misleading. Better to look at 3-year or 6-year periods within 1997-2008. For instance, Maharashtra saw a decline in farm suicide numbers in 2005, but the very next year proved to be its worst ever. Since 2006, the State has been the focus of many initiatives. Manmohan Singh’s visit to Vidharbha that year brought the “Prime Minister’s Relief Package” of Rs.3,750 crore for six crisis-ridden districts of the region. This came atop Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh’s Rs.1,075 crore “CM’s relief package.” Then followed the nearly Rs.9,000 crore that was Maharashtra’s share of the Rs.70,000-crore Central loan waiver for farmers. To which the State government added Rs.6,200 crore for those farmers not covered by the waiver. The State added Rs.500 crore for a one-time settlement (OTS) for poor farmers who had been excluded from the waiver altogether because they owned over five acres of land.

In all, the amounts committed to fighting the agrarian crisis in Maharashtra exceeded Rs. 20,000 crore across 2006, 2007 and 2008. (And that’s not counting huge handouts to the sugar barons.) Yet, that proved to be the worst three-year period ever for any State at any time since the recording of farm data began. In 2006-08, Maharashtra saw 12, 493 farm suicides. That is nearly 600 more than the previous worst of 2002-2005 and 85 per cent higher than the 6,745 suicides recorded in the three-year period of 1997-1999. The same government was in power, incidentally, in the worst six years. Besides, these higher numbers are emerging within a shrinking farm population. By 2001, 42 per cent of Maharashtra’s population was already urban. Its farmer base has certainly not grown.

So was the loan waiver useless? The idea of a waiver was not a bad thing. And it was right to intervene. More that the specific actions were misguided and bungled. Yet it could also be argued that but for the relief the waiver brought to some farmers at least, the suicide numbers of 2008 could have been a lot worse. The waiver was a welcome step for farmers, but its architecture was flawed. A point strongly made in this journal (Oh! What a lovely waiver, March 10, 2008). It dealt only with bank credit and ignored moneylender debt. So only those farmers with access to institutional credit would benefit. Tenant farmers in Andhra Pradesh and poor farmers in Vidharbha and elsewhere get their loans mainly from moneylenders. So, in fact, farmers in Kerala, where everyone has a bank account, were more likely to gain. (Kerala was also the one State to address the issue of moneylender debt.)

The 2008 waiver also excluded those holding over five acres, making no distinction between irrigated and unirrigated land. This devastated many struggling farmers with eight or 10 acres of poor, dry land. On the other hand, West Bengal’s farmers, giant numbers of small holders below the 5-acre limit, stood to gain far more.

Every suicide has a multiplicity of causes. But when you have nearly 200,000 of them, it makes sense to seek broad common factors within that group. Within those reasons. As Dr. Nagaraj has repeatedly pointed out, the suicides appear concentrated in regions of high commercialisation of agriculture and very high peasant debt. Cash crop farmers seemed far more vulnerable to suicide than those growing food crops. Yet the basic underlying causes of the crisis remained untouched. The predatory commercialisation of the countryside; a massive decline in investment in agriculture; the withdrawal of bank credit at a time of soaring input prices; the crash in farm incomes combined with an explosion of cultivation costs; the shifting of millions from food crop to cash crop cultivation with all its risks; the corporate hijack of every major sector of agriculture including, and especially, seed; growing water stress and moves towards privatisation of that resource. The government was trying to beat the crisis — leaving in place all its causes — with a one-off waiver.

In late 2007, The Hindu carried (Nov. 12-15) the sorry result emerging from Dr. Nagaraj’s study of NCRB data: that nearly 1.5 lakh peasants had ended their lives in despair between 1997 and 2005. Just days later, Union Minister for Agriculture Sharad Pawar confirmed those figures in Parliament (Rajya Sabha Starred Question No. 238, Nov. 30, 2007) citing the same NCRB data. It’s tragic that 27 months later, the paper had to run a headline saying that the number had climbed to nearly 2 lakh. The crisis is very much with us. Mocking its victims, heckling its critics. And cosmetic changes won’t make it go away.

Farm Suicides: Big 5 states vis a vis all-India

Year

Maharashtra

Andhra Pradesh

Karnataka

Madhya Pradesh & Chhatisgarh *

Farm suicides in

Big 5 states

yearly total

Farm suicides All-India yearly total

ALL suicides in India yearly total

Big 5 as % of all farm suicides

Big 5 as % of ALL suicides

1997

1917

1097

1832

2390

7236

13622

95829

53.1

7.6

1998

2409

1813

1883

2278

8383

16015

104713

52.3

8.0

1999

2423

1974

2379

2654

9430

16082

110587

58.6

8.5

2000

3022

1525

2630

2660

9837

16603

108593

59.2

9.1

2001

3536

1509

2505

2824

10374

16415

108506

63.2

9.6

2002

3695

1896

2340

2578

10509

17971

110417

58.5

9.5

TOTALS 1997-2002

17002

9814

13569

15384

55769

96708

638645

57.5

8.7

2003

3836

1800

2678

2511

10825

17164

110851

63.1

9.8

2004

4147

2666

1963

3033

11809

18241

113697

64.7

10.4

2005

3926

2490

1883

2660

10959

17131

113914

64.0

9.6

2006

4453

2607

1720

2858

11638

17060

118112

68.2

9.9

2007

4238

1797

2135

2856

11026

16632

122637

66.3

9.0

2008

3802

2105

1737

3152

10797

16196

125017

66.7

8.6

TOTALS 2003-2008

24402

13465

12116

17070

67054

102424

704228

65.5

9.6

TOTALS 1997-2008

41404

23279

25685

32454

122823

199132

1342873

61.5

9.1

* MP & Chhattisgarh now have separately recorded data for recent years (available on the NCRB website). Since the data for earlier years cannot be disaggregated we treat them as a single entity in this table, for convenience.